In this photograph, we are going to take a look at how we can use twotraditional tools in order to brighten and whiten teeth.In particular, we are going to examine how we can use the Dodge tool and theSponge tool set to Desaturate to work on the teeth.Well, first let's go ahead and zoom- in a little bit, so we can really focusin on the teeth there.We can see there is a little bit of discoloration.Let's say that we want to brighten those teeth up and remove a bit of that color.Well, first we need to duplicate our Background layer just so we have theability to lower the opacity of our effect or to remove it if it doesn'tturn out very well.

We can copy this layer by pressing Command or Ctrl+J. That will then jump theBackground layer up to the topmost layer.We'll name this one here Teeth.Next step, we are going to go ahead and select the Dodge tool.You can see that here in the Tools panel.Now, we want to work on the Midtones.We want a really nice and low Exposure.Maybe somewhere around 15% or so.In regards to the actual brush, we want a small brush size, no hardness. All right, great!Protect Tones turned on, and then go ahead and position your brush over theteeth and make it about the size of half of a tooth there or a little bit less.

Then, we are just going to go ahead and start to paint back-and-forth over the teeth.Now, a lot of times having a brush that's a little bit bigger works well,because you won't have as many visible brush strokes.Smaller brush strokes sometimes give it away a little bit because you'll seethose little brush strokes.Although the smaller brush strokes also give us a bit more precise controlgetting into those harder areas.So here we are just going to go through and brighten these teeth up with thisDodge tool, brightening up these mid-tones here as we make our way through the photograph.

Well that's looking good so far.Let's take a look at how we've done.Here we have before and then after. So far, so good.We'll go around the edges a little bit more and also any other areas we thinkare a little bit too dark and we just simply want to brighten up.Now again, keep in mind that because this is on its own layer, we have theability to lower the opacity of this effect.Therefore, it may be a good idea to push the effect just a little bitfarther than we are comfortable with, knowing that we are going to soften it up in a bit. All right!Next step, we'll go ahead and select another tool, which is located underneaththe Dodge tool. It's called the Sponge tool.

Here we have the option to choose a mode.Saturate or Desaturate.We want to Desaturate.Now, we don't want to have a high amount.If we have a high amount of desaturation, watch what happens when I paintover this tooth here.It looks like the tooth is dead.So removing color completely, not a good idea. Let's undo that.Rather, we want to take our Flow down probably about to 10% or so. A real low amount.Then we will go ahead and just slowly start to paint over these teeth.Certain teeth will need a little bit more work than others, so we can spend somemore time on those other teeth.

We may not want to go quite so far, making my brush a little bit bigger.So I am making broader brush strokes here and just looking to remove a littlebit of that color shift in those teeth.Again, also thinking through that I'm probably going to lower the Opacityof this adjustment.Okay, well let's zoom out so we can kind of evaluate it at a little bit more ofa pulled-back perspective. How are we doing?Well, if we click on the eye icon here, we can see before and then now we can see after.Pretty nice, subtle, yet important teeth whitening and brightening.

If we lower the Opacity of course, we can bring back a little bit of theoriginal hue or we can just find the right spot for this particular adjustment.Now, in my case, I think it's going to be pretty good at 100%.The detail work we did there looks really nice. It looks natural.It doesn't draw too much attention to the teeth.One of the reasons why I want to have this on that separate layer is becauseit's really easy to go too far with teeth whitening.We don't want people to notice teeth first and foremost.We want them drawn to the eyes.

But of course the teeth are important but most important perhaps is the eyes,the overall expression, and the look and feel of the photograph.So in this case I think we did a pretty good job.Here we have it one more time, our before and after.Using the Dodge tool to brighten the teeth and then the Sponge tool todesaturate color where needed.

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Released

7/14/2010

In Photoshop CS5: Portrait Retouching, professional photographer and instructor Chris Orwig uses his extensive experience with Photoshop to focus on the specific tools every photographer needs to adjust images and keep them looking genuine. This course explores this program's deep resources for portrait retouching and inspires photographers to do their creative best with everything from blemishes to backdrops. Exercise files are included with the course.